The present invention relates generally to automotive vehicle sunroofs and more particularly to a multi-panel sunroof system.
It is common to employ single-panel sunroofs in automotive vehicles. More recently, various attempts have been made to increase the sunroof opening area in vehicles to maximize open roof area above all of the vehicle passengers especially as the front windshield header continues to move rearwardly for styling and aerodynamic reasons. For example, various multi-panel sunroofs have been considered to increase open roof area and are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. No. 5,746,475 entitled “Drive Mechanism for an Automotive Vehicle Sunroof Assembly” which issued to Caye et al. on May 5, 1998; U.S. Pat. No. 5,197,779 entitled “Power Sliding Sunroof” which issued to Mizuno et al. on Mar. 30, 1993; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,937 entitled “Roof System for Vehicle” which issued to Yamamoto on Jul. 9, 1991; all of which are incorporated by reference herein. While some of these patents offer significant improvements, the sunroof tracks take up considerable vertical space thereby encroaching on desired headroom of the vehicle occupants, and do not provide vertical access above the storage area of a sport utility vehicle or station wagon.